In machines for handling viscous or doughy-consistency synthetic resin compositions, it is known to provide a funnel which can be equipped with a feed worm or screw which can communicate via an elbow with a chamber into which the synthetic resin material is to be fed for ultimate extrusion or injection molding by a movable member in this chamber (see German patent 37 12 828).
In the processing of highly viscous materials, especially. for example, glass fiber-filled polyesters, these systems require the material flow to overcome significant resistance. In practice it has been found that to overcome this resistance, the feed unit must supply extremely high pressures, for example 60 to 70 bar, and thus must draw high drive power. The volume flow rate is detrimentally influenced by the need to overcome this resistance and thus the rate at which an injection molding machine, for example, can cycle, can be detrimentally effected as well.
It has been found, moreover, that the fibers contained in the synthetic resin may be damaged by the high pressures and the stresses to which the material may be subjected under these conditions and frequently the metering or extrusion cylinder is filled with the plastic material to a lesser degree than might otherwise be desirable.
Since glass fiber-filled plastic bodies are increasingly utilized in modern technology, especially for the automotive industry, and the fabrication of these products may require a number of operating steps with prior apparatus of the type described, the conventional system obviously has significant drawbacks.
As a consequence, it has been necessary heretofore to fabricate flat mats of the glass fiber-filled synthetic resin and to shape these mats under high pressure and high temperatures in appropriate molds or dies. Such processes are time-consuming and of low efficiency.